Educator -Scholar – Writer – Speaker - Advocate

You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world….The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way…people look at reality, then you can change it.

On his latest album, 4:44, the hip hop star and business mogul raps, “My therapist said I relapsed.” Upon hearing that line on “Smile,” I thought to myself, that’s some good sh-t, even Jay got a therapist. I don’t know if it’s true, but I hope it is, and I hope other Black men catch on. Apologizing for the harm that we’ve caused is good, but there is so much trauma that can be prevented by just working on ourselves. Escaping the ‘hood, getting an education or earning money the legitimate way is not enough— we need to heal. Read more…

The average rap fan imagines Houston as a land of slab drivin’, screw jammin’ music heads, but the city’s hip-hop culture goes deeper than rap. H-Town — home of the Geto Boys, Scarface, UGK, DJ Screw, Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Slim Thug, and even Beyoncé — has become an epicenter of hip-hop culture. While Houston’s 30-year-plus hip-hop history has been admired and utilized by many of today’s favorite artists — including Jay Z, A$AP Rocky and Drake — mainstream attention on Houston has come in fits and starts since the late 1980s. Read more…

For over thirty years, Nelson George, in his role as journalist, cultural critic, filmmaker, and producer, has documented African American popular culture for the masses. Though not a trained historian, his in-depth analyses have offered panoramic shots of American life, during particular times and places, as experienced by African Americans through some of their cultural production. As one who grew up and came of age at the height and end of one story (soul) and has lived through the development and expansion of another story (hip hop), most of his reporting has covered African American cultural life through its transition from Civil Rights Movement-Black Power Movement-soul-independent black-owned record companies-industrialized economy-hope to a deindustrialized economy-massive suburbanization-corporate takeover of black music-hopelessness-hip hop.1 It is within this personal and social context that George created such notable works as The Michael Jackson Story (1984), The Death of Rhythm & Blues (1988), Buppies, B-boys, Baps & Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture (1992), CB4 (1993), Hip Hop America (1998), and the American Gangster television series (2007). Continuing with this creative trajectory, George’s most recent literary work, The Plot Against Hip Hop, uses hip hop as a discursive space to view a slice of American life, but this time instead of a real life chronicle, he pinned a fictional murder mystery. Read More…

Rap, the oral expressive component of hip-hop culture, is recognized as rhythmic spoken prose usually performed over beat-driven music that derives from older African and African-American oral traditions. These traditions include negro spirituals, slave songs, toasting, and playing the dozens. The term “hip-hop,” often used synonymously with rap and rap-influenced rhythm-and-blues music, specifically refers to a distinct urban cultural movement that began in the Bronx, New York City, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Read More…

Geto Boys, a Houston rap group, was formed in 1986 by James “Lil’ J” Smith, owner of Rap-A-Lot Records. The Geto Boys are regarded as the group that not only put Houston (and the Fifth Ward) on the hip-hop map, but also the South on the hip-hop map. They are also one of the first groups to pioneer what critics would call the “gangsta rap” genre within hip-hop by telling the real and fictional stories of the life of marginalized people in urban communites like Houston’s Fifth Ward. The band (originally spelled “Ghetto Boys”) consisted of Keith Rogers (Sire Juke Box), Thelton Polk (K-9/Sir Rap-A-Lot), and Oscar Ceres (Raheem). In 1986 the trio released the single “Car Freak,” which received limited distribution. Read More…

UGK is a Texas hip-hop group that formed in the late 1980s in Port Arthur, Texas, a port city outside of Houston. UGK is known for their funk, soul, and gospel-infused instrumentals that underlay the personal and fictional tails of urban life along the Texas Gulf Coast. Chad “Pimp C” Butler (December 29, 1973–December 4, 2007) and Bernard “Bun B” Freeman (born March 19, 1973) told these stories. Read More…

Booker Taliaferro Caldwell, successful tailor, men’s wear entrepreneur, and son of John and Nannie E. Caldwell, was born on January 23, 1923, in Neches, Texas (Anderson County). Caldwell’s father, also a successful businessman, owned a sawmill company, cotton gin, and tomato shed between Anderson County and Cherokee County. At one juncture in the early part of the twentieth century, John Caldwell was one of the largest land owners—black or white—in East Texas. He married twice and had sixteen children between his wives Nannie Caldwell and Josephine Caldwell. Read More…

Understanding the Human King
Article in Houston Defender
April 5, 2012

April 4 is the 44th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It is a day to remember the contributions of the slain leader and also a day to decide how to keep his activism alive.

In 1968, on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, MLK’s mortal voice was forever silenced by shots from a rifle that punctured his neck. He fell to the ground, dying immediately. At that moment, a human rights leader died, and a romanticized American hero was born. Read More…

Black Leaders of Political Thought
Article in Houston Defender
February 17, 2011

Today’s Black leadership and political thought owes much to those men and women who laid the foundation years ago. Men such as Booker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and A. Phillip Randolph were international figures who made it possible for our current leadership to serve the needs of Black America and the broader human race. Read More…

Unemployment: The Impact and Consequences
Article in Houston Defender
September 2, 2010

All across the country the unemployment, the unemployment picture is bleak and nowhere is that impact being felt more than in the Black community. Those who lost unemployment benefits are a small fraction of the larger jobless picture; as of June, 14.6 million Americans were without jobs. Houston’s unemployment rate crept below the national rate at 8.8 percent with about 250,000 unemployed, but this number is double for African-Americans with a 17.7 percent jobless rate in Houston. Read More…

Last month, Fox News Network in Houston aired an interview featuring young people who waited in long lines to get a pair of the re-released Air Jordan Concord shoes. This video and others from across the country associated with the same event have gone viral– creating laughs for many and embarrassment for others. Comments such as “They just set us back 100 years,” or “pure coonery” touch on the root of shame but why? Read More…

We have seen them in our neighborhoods for years raising young Black men. They are hard working, gentle, vulnerable, scared, crafty, multitasking, vibrant, and no mess taking women who sacrifice so much for their families. Society and media attempt to sully their image, but these are the same single Black mothers who raised a Tupac Shakur, Christopher Wallace, Shawn Carter, Dr. Ben Carson, Kanye West, Jesse Jackson and a cadre of other successful Black men. Read More…

If you are looking to upgrade to a crossover vehicle with the swagger of a deuce-and-a-quarter (Buick Electra 225), great fuel economy, a luxury interior, embellished features, space and utility, and with an affordable price tag—then GMC’s Acadia Denali is the right choice for you. Read More…

Yes, I said it right! Last week the U.S. House of Representatives issued what has been called an “unprecedented” apology for the institution of slavery and for the subsequent Jim Crow laws.

OK, Clap for a minute and do the Roger Rabbit. I’ll wait.

Your minute is up now.

Now to my analysis of this apology. SO WHAT! It’s great that congress can say “we are sorry” for an institution that many of them benefited from. But what does this apology really mean, what does it do? Read More…